


Managing Mischief at the End of the World

by pepper_writes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Desi James Potter, Friends to Lovers, Gay Sirius Black, Illustrations, Implied Sexual Content, MWPP, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Multi, Pansexual Remus Lupin, Period-Typical Homophobia, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Slow Burn, Welsh Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepper_writes/pseuds/pepper_writes
Summary: It's the Marauders' fifth year at Hogwarts, and they're determined to make it their most mischievous yet.But as grim news continues to roll out of the Ministry and hostility towards Muggle-born students escalates at Hogwarts, the Marauders begin to realize that they have a lot of growing up to do.A vaguely canon-based Marauders Coming-of-Age story. Mostly Wolfstar with a side salad of Jily.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 2





	1. Property of Sirius Orion Black

**Author's Note:**

> _ Disclaimer _ : I am absolutely disgusted by JKR’s transphobic rhetoric and, as an adult, continually find myself becoming more thoughtful and critical about aspects of a story that I voraciously consumed and adored without question as a kid. Needless to say I’m in a position to be a lot more critical of the books (and their author) while still appreciating the joy and inspiration they gave me, and hope that you enjoy this little snippet of silliness that was quite fun and therapeutic for me to write (and illustrate!). Quarantine is making me nostalgic, so what the heck. 

_ February, 5th year _

Much like it usually did after a full moon, the world came back in fragments. 

The sharp, clean scent left behind by the scouring charm James had cast upon seeing last month’s mess on the floorboards, perpetually rough and full of splinters after so many claw marks and hoofprints. Any attempts to flex his fingers or toes inflamed the rubbed raw skin, the palms of his hands and the soles of his bare feet stiff with caked on dirt and something that smelled mysteriously like the hippogriff dung fertilizer Professor Sprout liked to keep stored behind greenhouse four, and not for the first time Remus wished that Dumbledore had bothered to fix up the Shack enough to at least get them some soap and running water.

At the very least it was rather warm for an early morning in February. 

Remus sighed into the heat, grateful for the small comfort: surely one of his fellow Marauders had taken the time to seal up the cracks in the wall or charm the blankets warm. It was early enough that the three of them were probably still passed out somewhere nearby, fast asleep it seems until the very moment Madam Pomfrey clambered down the tunnel to transport him to the hospital wing. 

Sure enough, Remus could see Peter--still in his rat form--curled up in the corner of one of their discarded cloaks, whiskers twitching in sleep, and hear James’s familiarly percussive snores emanating from the threadbare couch in the next room over. 

He had just gathered enough of his faculties to search for Sirius when he felt a hot breath against the shell of his ear.

Remus froze, suddenly wide awake as his face and chest began to prickle in that way they always did when his scarred, pale skin took on a decidedly more reddish hue. 

It seemed that, before exhaustion had claimed him completely, Remus had curled into Sirius’ lap on the daybed and held fast, fingers tangled in the oversized Muggle jumper he’d purchased over Christmas break while thrifting in London with James last year, pressed in close enough to his friend’s sternum that he could easily hear the steady beating of his heart through the thick layer of cotton. His enhanced sense of smell easily picked up the sharp, woodsy scent of stale Firewhiskey and the cloying sweetness of marijuana that even a well-placed  _ scourgify _ hadn’t managed to mask. In any other situation Remus would have wrinkled his nose and recoiled in disgust, but pressed in this close--

“Moony?”

Remus’s breath hitched as Sirius stirred beneath him, blinking as his silvery-grey eyes peeled open and adjusted to the light. From this close Remus could practically count his long, dark eyelashes, and catch the vestiges of some smeared eyeliner Marlene McKinnon had jokingly applied to his face the morning previous during breakfast before they’d all headed to Potions. He remembered Sirius admiring himself in the bathroom mirror after class, contemplating whether to ask Marlene if she could teach him how to do it himself as Remus had knocked back a calming draught in one of the stalls, trying (and failing) to write off his rapid pulse as one of his ‘moon-moods.’

As Sirius’s vision came into focus, the tip of his nose just a handspan shy of Remus’s, the werewolf wished desperately that he’d had another one of those potions on him.

Remus croaked, only to seal his lips and clear his throat before trying again. His jaw was unusually sore, and now that he’d willed some moisture back into his mouth it tasted as if something had crawled there and died. He hoped against hope that Sirius couldn’t smell his breath.

“H-hey, Pads.”

Sirius breathed out a sigh of relief, slouching back into the daybed. 

“An’thing broken?” he murmured, warm fingers ghosting along Remus’s back as he searched for injuries, not yet awake enough to notice how the gesture had made Remus shiver and swallow back a less than dignified noise.

“D-don’ think so,” he managed to reply, unable to hold back a whimper as Sirius pulled him in tight, the pads of his lithe fingers pressing into Remus’s neck and shoulder blades as he was held in close. Something throbbed on the left side of his ribs, but from what he could tell it was only heavily bruised.

“Thank  _ fuck _ ,” Sirius muttered, burying his head into the crook of Remus’s neck as he laughed lightly in relief. Before he could ponder too heavily on the scratchy stubble tickling the sensitive skin below his ear, Sirius was easing him gingerly back into the corner of the daybed, maneuvering himself until he was standing above Remus’s prone form, gesturing towards an area just below his left pectoral.

“I know you don’t remember, but your dumb furry bum chased a unicorn halfway across the forest before it finally turned around and kicked you,” Sirius remarked, hissing in sympathy as Remus’s face pinched in pain when he pressed a hand over the nasty bruise. “I reckon you’re pretty lucky it wasn’t worse after you got a mouthful of its tail.”

Remus paled, biting his lip. “I didn’t hurt it, did I?” he murmured, eyes wide. He hated when his transformations incurred casualties: he’d killed far too many squirrels and badgers over the years, and waking up next to a mutilated, partially eaten animal never got easier, especially when he spent the next twenty-four hours coughing up hairballs in the hospital wing. 

“No, just made it mad as all hell,” Sirius laughed, scratching the back of his head as he popped out the kinks in his back. “You seemed fine, too: chased us all the way back to the edge of the forest before you passed out a quarter mile away from the Shack.”

“How on earth did you get me back here?” Remus muttered, tentatively stretching his bare arms above his head to gauge his mobility and check for injuries.

Sirius snickered. “Got you on Prongs’s back. Completely starkers, of course,” he remarked, grinning as he recalled his favorite track from the new Queen record, “passing by like Lady Godiva.”

“I’m gonna go, go, go, there’s no stopping meeee,” Remus sang weakly, voice frying out into a cough as Sirius dissolved into a fit of giggles that he tried in vain to stifle, eyes crinkling in the corners as he and Remus shared a warm smile.

“That’s the spirit, Moony,” he murmured, tone nothing short of doting as he raked a hand through his own tangle of dark curls. “Next time we’re in London we can have a duet at one of those pubs with the Muggle sing-along contraptions.”

“Bold of you to assume that we haven’t already been banned from every karaoke bar in London for life.”

Sirius levitated one of the cleaner pillows from the floor with his wand and smacked Remus in the legs, gently as to not aggravate any injuries.

“ _ Rude _ ,” Sirius chided mirthfully, clicking his tongue as he stumbled over the coffee table, plucking Remus’s wand and carefully folded clothes from the crumbling side table. He grabbed two washcloths and a bowl as well, filling the latter with a muttered  _ aguamenti _ and heating it until the ceramic felt warm in his fingers.

“You’re lucky I’m not going to Vanish your knickers for that one, Lupin,” he joked lightly as he gently placed the bundle next to Remus on the daybed and set the bowl atop the table, leaving enough space to sit as he beckoned his friend forward. “Can you sit up, or do you want to stay like that?”

Remus winced as he propped himself up on his forearms, muscles and bones still sore from being broken down and reformed twice within the span of six hours, but managed to do as Sirius asked. “What--?”

“Your hands are a right mess,” Sirius added by way of explanation, swearing under his breath when he seemed to have forgotten something. “ _ Accio _ Essence of Murtlap.”

Sirius’s shoulder bag clattered to the floor as the small bottle wormed its way out of the opening, zooming effortlessly into one hand as the other began to soak the wash cloth. 

When Remus realized what Sirius intended to do, he squirmed so violently that the Animagus looked up halfway through spooning some of the murtlap concentrate into the bowl, eyebrow raised.

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” Remus stammered, avoiding Sirius’s eyes as he pulled his arms close to his chest. “Madam Pomfrey will take care of it: you and Wormy and Prongs should be getting back to the dorms before Filch wakes up to do his rounds, and--”

“ _ Moony, _ ” Sirius chided, head shaking ruefully as he motioned for Remus to give him his hands. “Please? For me?”

Remus bit his lip, shoulders relaxing as he allowed Sirius to cup one of his hands between his own, splaying out the fingers to inspect the damage. With a quick  _ scourgify _ the majority of the dirt was gone, vanishing with a quick tap of Sirius’s wand. 

“I’ve got to stop goading you into hole digging competitions,” he lamented, getting a chuckle out of Remus as he lowered his hand into the murtlap.

“What were we burying this time?” he inquired, sighing in relief as the solution soothed the persistent throb into a dull thrum. Sirius motioned for his other hand, scouring it quickly before settling it in alongside the other. 

“A couple of glorious bear thighbones,” Sirius sighed, looking up to the ceiling of the Shack as if wistfully in thought. “Prongs’s gonna tease us about it for  _ weeks _ . You won, by the way, and were pretty smug about it, too.”

Ah: dragging a recently dismembered bear’s femur through the forest would certainly explain the soreness in his jaw and the awful taste in his mouth. 

“I’m sure we both had a lovely time,” Remus hummed, an unbridled smile lifting the corners of his lips until he felt the tug of his scarred flesh pulling across his cheekbones. “Thank you for keeping me company, Padfoot.”

Sirius shrugged. “It’s no trouble, really,” he replied, chin tucking into his chest as he busied himself fiddling with the label peeling off of the bottle of murtlap. “Moony’s fun once you get ‘im going.”

Remus raised a notched eyebrow. “Fun?”

“Yeah, mate,” Sirius replied, shaking his head as if it were obvious. “I know it was bollocks when you broke out of the Shack last year but, I don’t know: it seems like every full you’ve had since then hasn’t been so bad? At least, that’s my view: what do you think, Moons?”

Remus thought back to last term, waking up stark naked in the middle of a clearing somewhere in the Forbidden Forest rather than splayed across the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack. The ground had frosted over that night, and it had taken several warming charms for Remus to regain the feeling in his fingers and toes: had James and Peter found him any later he would have probably lost a few of them to frostbite. Other than exposure, though, Remus had been otherwise quite miraculously unscathed, and spent only a single night in the hospital wing. He remembered Pomfrey’s suspicious glances as he’d worked his way through two massive bars of Honeyduke’s chocolate (courtesy of Sirius, a penance for missing the transformation due to a poorly scheduled detention) and an entire rotisserie chicken brought up from the kitchens, perplexed as to how he could have worked up such an appetite while trapped in a glorified box for eight hours. When he’d returned to the dormitories Peter and James had been passed out cold in their four-poster beds surrounded by candy wrappers and half a dozen plates that had obviously been licked clean, dead to the world since Sirius had arrived early that morning after a whole night scrubbing cauldrons in Slughorn’s classroom. 

“I reckon you’re right,” Remus muttered, lightly clenching and unclenching his fists to test the efficacy of the murtlap solution, surprised to see that some of the scrapes had already begun to scab over. “Who knew that all it took to calm the wolf down was a walk?”

“A  _ walk _ ? More like a damned marathon,” Sirius amended, snorting derisively while Remus chuckled. “I think you gave James some particularly sadistic ideas for Quidditch training: you know he had us doing  _ laps _ around the Quidditch pitch on  _ foot  _ last week? Lily had to help us all order trainers through the Muggle post.”

“So  _ that  _ explains why I nearly passed out when you took off your socks a few nights ago,” Remus quipped, face pinching at the memory before he perked up in realization. “Wait, Hogwarts can receive Muggle post?”

“Yeah, Lily told me Dumbledore has it Flooed to his office--”

“What’s this about Lily now?”

Remus flinched, sloshing the murtlap about in the bowl as James suddenly appeared behind the sofa, his warm, brown eyes glinting as he perched elbows-first on the threadbare cushions. Disheveled as ever, with a messy cowlick and round glasses askew and covered in smeared fingerprints, he looked like he’d been awake all night rather than passed out cold and snoring in the next room not five minutes ago. 

“Bloody  _ hell _ , Prongs--”

“You never told me that she helped you buy trainers!” he exclaimed, narrowing his eyes at Sirius. “Was it from the Muggle catalogue? I should get trainers from the Muggle catalogue--”

“Yes, Prongs, I’m sure you and Lily will fall in love as you peruse a catalogue shopping for footwear,” Sirius drawled, wiping away some of the murtlap that had splashed onto his face while Remus stuttered an apology for the mess. 

“Just like the TV adverts,” Peter piped up, rubbing his eyes as he blinked himself awake, obviously miffed from all of the commotion that had roused him from sleep. “Boy and girl reach for the last chicken nugget in the bucket, their fingers brush, cue the music as they stare into one another’s eyes and fall madly in love inside a McDonald’s--”

Remus snorted, chuckling as Sirius mouthed ‘what’s a chicken nugget?’ and James shrugged in return, completely vexed.

“I’m sure Evans would be impressed with your knowledge of Muggle culture if you asked her out on a date to McDonald’s,” he suggested wryly, snickering as James seemed to take in his words as if they were gospel. “Tell her you’ve reserved the ball pit and everything.”

Peter laughed so loudly that Remus barely heard Pomfrey approaching the Shack from several yards away, glass bottles full of potions clinking together in her med kit.

“Shit, Pomfrey’s here--”

“Bugger,” James hissed, all business as he pulled out the invisibility cloak from under the couch and gestured Peter over. “Pete, transform and get into my pocket.”

Peter, now again a rat, was tucked away in James’s jumper just as Sirius Vanished the bowl of murtlap, smiling apologetically as he deprived Remus of the temporary respite with a flick of his wand. 

“We’ll catch you in the hospital wing later today, alright?” he promised, smiling wryly as he glanced about the room in search of the rest of his things. “I’ll take notes for you in Herbology and get you the homewor--”

“Padfoot, for Merlin’s sake,  _ get under the cloak _ !”

Sirius rolled his eyes as he obeyed James, transforming into a familiar young black Afghan hound before stumbling through the shimmering fabric, nearly tripping over his massive paws in his haste. It hadn’t been a moment too soon, either: just as his impudent tail had vanished Pomfrey had begun to knock softly on the reinforced door that lead into the Shack from the tunnel.

“Remus, dear, are you all right in there?” her familiar voice rang out, slightly scratchy with disuse but still wavering slightly with the weight of her consternation. It seemed that, no matter how many full moons he had been under her charge, Remus could always count on the kind medi-witch to worry about him.

“Yes, I’m doing all right,” he replied, wincing as he pulled himself fully upright on the couch. “I don’t think anything’s broken or dislocated, at least.”

“Thank heavens for that,” she declared, straightening out her back as she appeared at the entrance to the tunnel. “Oh, good, you’re already up: let’s see...move your fingers and toes...good, good...head up and down, side to side…”

Remus glared at the corner where knew James was still hidden, mindlessly going through the song and dance of gestures Pomfrey listed off like clockwork first thing after entering the Shack: he could do it in his sleep by now, after so many full moons, but she paced him, much like that rather spry Muggle Richard Simmons did in his mother’s exercise tapes.

“Bit of a nasty bruise,” she remarked casually, halfway through inspecting the integrity of his lungs and ribcage. “I’ll give you a potion for that when I’ve got you back in the hospital wing--can you turn around for me? Good lad, nothing too deep back here--”

Remus froze as Pomfrey’s voice trailed off, and could practically hear James’s voice hitching beneath the cloak. 

“Something wrong?”

“No, sweet boy, don’t mind me: it seems like the house elves mixed up yours and Mr. Black’s laundry, is all.”

Remus felt all of the blood drain from his face as he felt along the waistband of his knickers, the pucker of embroidery brushing against the pads of his fingers just beneath his spine. After seeing many such articles strewn carelessly about the dorm for the past half a decade, Remus hardly needed to see the shimmering letters to know exactly what they said.

** _Property of_ **

** _Sirius Orion Black_ **

Pomfrey tittered at Remus’s embarrassment as she cleaned the blankets and daybed with a quick flick of her wand, insisting that it was bound to happen in a dorm room shared by four boys, but Remus knew better: Sirius usually stripped down to his birthday suit when he transformed into Padfoot on full moons (“nude solidarity, Moony”) and he and Remus usually discarded their clothes into a heap until they were inevitably required for decency the following morning. 

Truthfully, in terms of horrible things that could happen the morning after a full moon, this was perhaps the least consequential to date. Or, well, it would have been, had the other three Marauders not seen it all happen from their position under the invisibility cloak: Remus would bet five galleons that James had had to cast a silencing charm on himself to keep his cover from being blown, and that he’d use this as fodder for playful quips and suggestive jabs many times in the years to come.

Thankfully, Madam Pomfrey made short work of the rest of his injuries, allowed Remus to don his rumpled clothes from the night before, and seemed to forget about the mix-up as soon as they’d started making their way to the hospital wing. Before he could even pull back the sheets on the assigned bed, Pomfrey had spooned a Draught of Rejuvenating Rest from a bubbling cauldron into a goblet and levitated it over to the bedside table, offering her patient a quick smile and best wishes for a quick recovery. 

Remus rubbed at the small of his back as the potion started taking effect: for some reason he was itching something fierce back there, and couldn’t imagine why. However, before he could call Pomfrey over to give him a cream or lotion the potion hit him like the Hogwarts Express, and within moments he had fallen into a dreamless sleep, passed out before he’d even managed to get under the covers. 

***

Usually, when Remus woke up in the hospital wing the night after a full moon, he expected a couple of lingering aches and pains: the transformation and the injuries he incurred while he was the wolf almost guaranteed that, with a certainty that just about matched that of the lunar cycle on which his life seemed to revolve. There were typical injuries, and recurring aches-- his jaws and teeth, the base of his spine where his tail came in, his left kneecap (which had a habit of popping in and out of place at least a few times a year), the growing library of self-inflicted scratches along his chest and torso--but the throbbing at the small of his back was decidedly novel.

So novel, in fact, that he heard himself cry out when he shifted under the covers, the throb stoking itself into a burning pins-and-needles itch: indescribably unpleasant, like waking up to find oneself being eaten alive.

Remus was sick all over the floor just as Pomfrey rushed to his bedside, white-knuckling the metal bars bracketing the mattress as a wet scream convulsed its way out of his raw throat.

He passed out cold on the flagstone floors.

***

When Pomfrey had told him what had happened, Remus decided that he was far better off not remembering those thirty of so seconds of his life where the pain had been so terrible that his screams had woken the entire east wing of the castle on a Thursday morning. 

“The headmaster rushed in just after you passed out: I’ve been working here twenty years and have never seen Professor Dumbledore in his nightclothes, not even when he contracted dragon-pox in fifty-eight,” she muttered, fussing over Remus with the kind of fervor he’d come to expect from the medi-witch over the past few years. “We’ve got your cover story sorted: if anyone asks Peeves released a boggart and it manifested as a banshee.”

Remus blinked, brows scrunching. “Why not just a banshee?”

“We didn’t want Trelawney to get into a tizzy,” she huffed exasperatedly, fluffing Remus’s pillow for perhaps the fifth time in as many minutes. “She’s terribly anxious about omens.”

Well, at least one part of this situation was going to be easy to explain away.

“Merlin’s beard, Remus: I can’t tell you how sorry I am; I should have thought to check--”

“It’s not your fault,” he interrupted, plastering on a smile as he clutched the pillow propping up his torso. “I’m sorry I got sick all over your brand new trainers.”

Pomfrey huffed, shaking her head. “Nothing a quick cleaning spell couldn’t fix,” she remarked, suddenly quite interested in a bit of grout beneath her feet. “But I’m afraid the same can’t be said for your back.”

Remus winced, biting his lip: it seemed that he was going to be embossed with ‘Property of Sirius Orion Black’ just above his arse for the rest of his life. It turns out the wealthy not only used silver in spoons, but to infuse the thread used in monogramming their clothes as well. 

“It’s going to scar, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so, dear,” she muttered, wringing her hands. “We’ll have to see how it looks when it heals up: I reckon it’s small enough that a well-placed glamour will be able to cover it most of the time. If you’re looking for a more permanent option I can contact one of my nieces who runs a tattoo parlor in Dublin: it’ll be tricky, but she might be able to design something to cover it up--when you’re of age, of course.”

Remus hummed. “What do you reckon I should get?” he mumbled, tapping his fingers on the mattress. He half expected Sirius to appear from behind the curtain separating his bed from the rest of the ward at the mention of tattoos: he and Poppy would have a lot to talk about next time he and the rest of the Marauders crashed in the hospital wing. “What would you get?”

Tilting her head, the witch considered him for long enough that Remus expected her to completely ignore the question. After a pointed look, though, she decided to humor him.

“Perhaps a kneazel,” she mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “A black one, like my Gigi.”

“I had a black cat when I was little,” Remus added off-handedly, before thinking about it. “Her name was Luna--yes, I know, ironic. Nicest cat in the world, but she wouldn’t come near me after I got bitten.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Pomfrey touted, hands on her hips. “Gigi would love you--kneazles are excellent judges of character, after all.”

Remus blushed. “Maybe I can meet her one day,” he mused, resting his chin atop his folded hands. 

She nodded, giving a wry smile. “Who knows? She might slip into my handbag one day and I forget to check before coming to work: she’s been known to kip in the darndest places.”

“She and I have that in common.”

“Right you do, Mr. Lupin, right you do! Speaking of which--”

Pomfrey patted the mattress. 

“Catch up on rest while you can, love: I’ve forbidden your friends from the hospital wing until supper, which means they’ll probably try to sneak in by half past four.”

She waved her wand, casting a familiar concealment charm over Remus’s back.

“The glamor should last you ‘til tomorrow morning,” she offered kindly. “Enjoy your rest, dear: give me a shout if you need me.”

Remus hummed, sending her a grateful smile.


	2. Red in the Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* beetlejuice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C/W - mild homophobia; vague description of a panic attack.

He managed to get halfway through his eggs and toast the next morning before one of the Marauders started asking questions: a record, really, considering how nosey they all were. 

Sirius had been halfway through catching Remus up on the Herbology lesson he’d missed (“apparently if you eat enough dirigible plums in one sitting you’ll actually start to float”) when Peter had caught him wincing as the bench brushed against his lower back. 

“You alright there, Moony?” he inquired, taking a rather large bite out of his fifth strip of bacon as he eyed his friend warily. 

“Fine,” he muttered tersely, controlling his breath on the exhale as the wound throbbed at the agitation. “Just sore s’ all: nothing a few days won’t fix right up.”

“Is that why Pomfrey kept you most of the day?” James asked, chewing thoughtfully on some pancakes. “She was rather rattled when we tried to visit you during lunch.”

“Yeah, er, must’ve been the boggart,” Remus lied, sucking down an entire glass of pumpkin juice to conceal his less than convincing poker face. “Scared me half to death.”

Sirius’s spoon froze halfway to his mouth, brows pinching.

“Poppy said she’d dosed you with a sleeping potion as soon as you arrived in the hospital wing and that you’d, and I quote, be ‘completely and utterly dead to the world until dinner’,” he said matter-of-factly. “The boggart could have screamed directly into your ear and you would have stayed fast asleep.”

_ Fuck. _

“ _ Merlin _ , Remus--was that--that  _ scream _ \--”

A pleading look silenced him, but by the way the color was slowly draining out of James’s face and Peter had stopped chewing altogether, slack-jawed and mouth agape, it was already too late.

“I’m okay,” he insisted, wishing he’d sounded like he meant it. “But I just--can I please just get through the day first and explain later? I missed three classes yesterday and need to do the Potions reading in the next half hour or I’m going to melt another cauldron, and Marlene is helping me with a Charms essay that I’ve already asked Flitwick for an extension on, I can’t--”

“Moony, it’s  _ fine _ ,” Sirius insisted, so earnestly that Remus could have cried. “We can talk about it later: we’re just worried about you, right Prongs? Wormy?”

The pointed look he gave the both of them all but guaranteed their agreement.

“Y-yeah,” Peter squeaked, taking great pains to slice his breakfast sausage into perfect pieces so long as he could avert his eyes, while James gave a resigned sigh. 

“ I suppose I’ve got to read through the procedure for Potions, too: Slughorn said we were doing something Valentine’s Day-themed today, right?”

“Yeah, I could smell Antidote for a Broken Heart coming up from the dungeons yesterday,” Sirius remarked, wrinkling his nose. “Andromeda told me that he always does that one with the seventh year NEWT students: it makes the entire corridor stink for days.”

“Well the sixth-years are doing Amortentia right now, so hopefully that will cancel out the odor,” Peter added hopefully, rifling though his messenger bag for his copy of _Prixton Prep’s Guide to OWL_ _Potions: 100 Steps to an O_. “I can’t remember: is Sluggy having us make the Blushing Brew or Cupid’s Mien?”

“They’re the same thing, Pete,” Sirius drawled, rolling his eyes as he used his wand to flip through  _ Intermediate Potion-Making, Level V _ . Remus grinned as he saw familiar, flower-shaped Post-It notes inscribed with Sirus’s neat penmanship every couple of pages, the text enchanted to underline key phrases. More than happy to have Remus read over his shoulder, Sirius enlarged the text with his wand and placed the open book between them on the table, propped up on a basket of toast and jam, and began to read aloud:

“‘Evidence from Neolithic sites in Persia indicates that Blushing Brew, or Cupid’s Mien, has been known for thousands of years ’...blah blah blah…’oftentimes incorrectly referred to as a less potent variant of Amortentia (see page 397), Cupid’s Mien temporarily enhances the body’s responses to physical and romantic attraction, most notably a heightened heart rate and increased blood flow to the face’--I suppose that’s the blushing bit--’ but does not manufacture feelings of attraction. Variants of this potion have been used in Eurasia and Central America for hundreds of years in courting rituals, and was particularly popular among French witches in the eighteenth century. When brewed correctly Cupid’s Mien is a deep, ruby red with a watery viscosity and a faintly floral odor.’”

“Ooh, sounds girly,” Peter chuckled, wriggling his eyebrows. “Can you imagine if we managed to dose the entire school with this stuff? Absolute chaos.”

“Actually, Padfoot and I looked into it during our third year,” James remarked, “but if you have too much it can make your heart beat so hard that blood starts leaking out of your eyes, so we decided to fill the toilets with Orbeez instead.”

“Plus, if you make it incorrectly, Cupid’s Mien will give you a stiffy that lasts an entire day,” Sirius added, cringing as the warning circled itself on the page in red ink. “Good lord, could you imagine?” 

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose, trying very, very hard to muffle a snicker. “Next time you’re in Muggle Studies you should ask about Viagra.” 

“Who’s that, a singer?”

“Oh brilliant, you’re studying up on the potion before class?”

The four boys peered up from the text at the sound of Marlene McKinnon’s chipper lilt: Remus eyed the mug of hot chocolate (with hazelnut creamer, he guessed, based on how it smelled) clutched in her fingers, smiling when he saw a red and pink hand-knit jumper peeking out from her Hogwarts robes.

“Wotcher, Marlene,” he greeted, taking a bite out of his toast. “I like your jumper: it’s very, uh, seasonally appropriate.”

Her corkscrew curls bounced as she chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you know flattery will get you everywhere, Remus,” she teased, sipping daintily from her mug. When her lips touched the rim a coral-red lipstick mark appeared onto the ceramic, followed by an elegant ‘mwah!’ writing itself in shining gold calligraphy just below it. “We’re still meeting during the free period after lunch to go over Charms, yeah?”

Remus elbowed James as he wriggled his eyebrows. “Yeah, thanks so much for your help: I shouldn’t keep you long, I know you usually meet Lily and Mary and I don’t want to impose--”

“Oh, nonsense,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “It’s no trouble at all: plus, you helped us with Arithmancy, so it’s only fair.”

She considered the other Marauders thoughtfully. “I’m looking forward to whatever prank you four come up with for Valentine’s Day this year,” she declared, grinning knowingly. “Also, while I’m over here...were there any more cinnamon raisin bagels on this side of the table?”

“There’s two of those, three with poppy seeds, and a cheesy one left,” Peter replied, smiling shyly as he nudged the basket over from the center of the table. “All yours.”

“Brilliant, thanks, Peter,” she replied, plucking one from the pile. “I’ll see you lot in Potions!”

Her curls bobbed as she strode away, rushing over to meet Lily and Dorcas on the other side of the table as she brandished her prize. 

“I didn’t think Marlene knew my name,” Peter sighed dreamily, resting his head atop his open palm as he watched her sit down and offer her recently procured bagel to Lily, who accepted it with a grateful (and perhaps just a touch relieved) smile. 

Sirius snorted, incredulous. “It’s not like we’ve all been going to school together for the past five years,” he muttered, rolling his eyes when he caught James looking particularly wistful as Lily laughed at something Dorcas had said. “ _ Merlin _ \--do the two of you lose brain cells every time a girl looks in your general direction?”

“Shut up, Padfoot. Girls are great,” Peter mumbled, more to himself than anyone else, as James donned a dopey grin.

“Lily’s laugh sounds like birdsong, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, and I suppose her socks smell like unicorn farts,” Sirius muttered sarcastically, making Remus laugh so hard that he had to scrabble for a napkin before he shot tea from his nose all over the table, coughing loudly as the hot liquid rushed through his sinuses. 

“Good lord, Moony, let’s avoid any near-death experiences today until at least 9 AM,” Sirius chuckled, patting Remus’s back as if that would end his coughing fit. His fingers were still so warm. “I need you around to be my mate when Wormy and Prongs lose their minds to the whims of the fairer sex.”

“Talk about the kettle calling the cauldron black,” James quipped, rolling his eyes. “I seem to recall you ditching us to snog that Ravenclaw girl in one of the broom closets on the third floor instead of meeting us to sneak into Hogsmeade.”

“You say that as if it was an established habit,” he retorted. “I did that  _ once _ .”

Remus raised a scrutinizing eyebrow.

“Erm, okay, maybe twice.”

Remus thoughtfully sipped his tea, grimacing as he remembered Serena Vane, the plucky Ravenclaw who had dominated Sirius’s attention for the better part of three months last year. She had been particularly fond of a hair straightening tonic (a Muggle concoction with a not insignificant quantity of lye) that had been so strong that Remus had continued to smell it on Sirius’s clothes even weeks after they’d broken up. 

“Come on Moony, don’t get all judgmental on us now,” Sirius chided, throwing an arm around Remus’s shoulder as he barked out a laugh. “You can claim all you want that those bruises on your neck last month were from your furry little problem, but we all know you were having a pull.”

Remus shoved a biscuit into his friend’s mouth, face aflame: frankly, he hadn’t expected Caradoc Dearborn to be so, uh,  _ eager _ when they’d both drunkenly stumbled into the Room of Requirement on New Year’s. The shag had been more than worth the flack the other boys had given him for the evidence of their tryst: for one thing it had been the best fucking blowie of his life, but it had also shattered all remaining denial regarding his sexuality. Though he wasn’t ready to shout it from the rooftops, Remus had finally been able to conclude (after a large enough sample size) that he was far more inclined to select a partner based on their personality rather than what was between their legs. 

It hadn’t taken much time thereafter to realize that his... _ complicated _ feelings for Sirius were a mortifying, persistent, and rather inconvenient crush.

“I’m hardly being judgmental about having a pull,” Remus said pointedly, only half-lying as he reached for the basket of warm chocolate croissants that had just appeared from the kitchens with a soft  _ pop _ . “I’d just rather not hear a conversation about the firmness of Mary MacDonald’s breasts or what James thinks Lily’s breath smells like while I’m eating my breakfast.”

“So you  _ did _ pull that night!”

Remus’s eyes flicked up to Sirius, making sure the other boy was watching him before he sank his teeth into the flaky pastry, smirking in satisfaction as Sirius’s mouth hung open.

“Who--?”

“Prongs and I already tried that, so I’ll save you the trouble,” Peter groused, scratching notes into the margins of his Potions study guide with a ballpoint pen he’d stolen from Remus last week. “You know Moony doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Remus sent them both a wink in confirmation, humming contentedly as the croissant melted in his mouth.

***

Remus barely made it into the Potions classroom before the campus bell had finished its 9AM chime, slipping into the left-handed tandem potion brewing station across from Sirius before Slughorn had managed to turn around from the blackboard. He’d had to knock back another full moon recovery potion in the bathroom before class, and his knees had been so sore that he’d had to half lean on James to get to the dungeons on time. 

Offering his long-time Potions partner a small smile (they were, after all, the only southpaws in their year, pun entirely intended), Remus quickly flipped to the page Slughorn had indicated on the blackboard and reviewed the notes he’d penned into the margins a few nights prior, unable to hold back a soft chuckle as he came across the doodle Sirius had scribbled of Moony and Padfoot urinating on a drippy-nosed Severus Snape buried up to his neck in the ground.

  
  


“Right, right--good morning, fifth-years, good morning! I must beg your forgiveness for the odor: the seventh year NEWT students were brewing the Antidote for a Broken Heart, which requires a significant amount of brimstone, among a host of other rather foul ingredients,” Slughorn announced, looking somewhat green as he eyed the cutting board on his desk, where something that looked suspiciously like a dead rodent was splayed open with dissection pins. Remus winced, silently thanking the higher powers that Peter had decided to opt out of Potions this year. “In any case, today we will be brewing something a bit more pleasant: the Blushing Brew, or Cupid’s Mien, which I believe is the second cosmetic potion we’ll have brewed this year.”

A few of the girls in the class looked particularly excited, whispering amongst each other as Slughorn produced a vial of ruby-red potion from the sleeve of his robes. 

“Now, this particular potion utilizes magi-chromology--color-based magic,” he continued, pulling a rack containing dozens of tiny vials of pigment out from under his desk, “in combination with mild biological stimulants and, as we see in all potions, the brewer’s own magical intent. All three of these forces work in concert to create a potion that magnifies a typical physiological response. How is this different from a true love potion, such as Amortentia? Yes, Mr. Snape?”

“A true love potion will manufacture feelings of love and desire, but this draught can only magnify a response to existing feelings,” he recited mechanically, hardly looking up from his potions textbook.

“Excellent, five points to Slytherin--now, it is important to remember that magi-chromology varies vastly by culture: we, of course, have differences in the color-based ingredients available by region, but color can hold different meanings based on culture and context: for example, red can signify passion and love, but it can also be affiliated with completely different concepts, such as blood and violence.”

“Lily’s hair suddenly makes sense,” Remus heard James mutter, earning a snicker from Peter that had been loud enough to draw Slughorn’s attention.

“Ah yes, Mr. Potter, I reckon you have something you’d like to share with the class?” he inquired, less than thrilled at the interruption. “What does the color red mean where you’re from?”

_ Yikes _ , Remus thought, cringing internally as James’s eyebrow gave a subtle twitch. Sirius was barely containing a grimace of his own, fist clenching and unclenching as he witnessed his friend’s discomfort.

“Well, I’m from London, so the Union Jack, double-decker buses, and the Queen’s Guard,” he replied evenly, in that way he always did when a teacher inevitably othered him in front of his peers. Several of the students chuckled--more at Slughorn’s expense than at James’s--as the Potions professor’s face momentarily scrunched up with derision.

“Yes, municipal and national identity are certainly important with regard to color symbolism,” he conceded carefully, seeming relieved when Lily raised her hand. “Ah, yes, Ms. Evans?”

As Lily asked a question with a particularly long-winded answer (something about whether changing the red pigment used would yield a similar result), Remus caught sight of Sirius doodling James in a Queen’s Guard kit on a Post-It note, drawing his friend’s hair as an impressive beehive to replace the typical fur hat. The drawing would almost certainly end up stuck to the wall by James’s four-poster bed by the end of the day, joined by the dozens of others he’d already penned this term.

Eventually the lesson broached the topic of the pigment they’d be using, at which point Slughorn levitated a massive jar from beneath his desk with a piece of cactus covered in hundreds of white spots. Some of the white spots fell to the bottom of the jar as it settled with a loud  _ thunk _ on the ancient oak table, and one of the more dull Slytherins--Crabbe, if Remus remembered correctly--immediately raised his hand, his pug-like face crumpled in a combination of disgust and confusion as he eyed the contents of the jar. 

“Isn’t the potion supposed to be red?” he asked matter-of-factly, earning many nods of assent from his peers. “That looks white to me.”

Slughorn fished one of the white spots out from the jar with his wand and, with a well-placed flick, hurled it into a piece of parchment mounted on the blackboard. It splattered with enough force to create a sizable smudge of deep red that was not unlike blood on the surface, yielding several gasps and a retching noise from the front of the classroom. Startled from his doodling, Sirius eyed the splatter, noticing how Remus’s nose twitched, eyes alight with recognition.

“Female cochineal beetles,” Slughorn said primly, ignoring the sounds of disgust, “have been used by both Muggles and members of the magical community for thousands of years in dyes, pigments, and potions. Who can--yes, Mr. Lupin?”

“Is that--carmine red?” he asked, leaning closer to the blackboard. “I think my mum uses it to paint.”

“Yes, you are quite right, five points to Gryffindor,” he boomed, earning Remus a curious glance from Sirius. “The compound extracted from cochineal beetles is called carminic acid, or carmine. Chances are that everyone in this room has consumed it before in some way, shape, or form. It’s found in many cosmetics and is used to dye foods.”

“Are you telling me,” Mary MacDonald asked, voice quavering as she raised her hand, “that my lipstick is made of  _ bugs _ ?”

“It might very well have cochineal extract in it, yes, Ms. MacDonald,” Slughorn confirmed, at which point at least half of the girls in the class picked up their school bags to rifle through their makeup. “Ah, yes, this usually happens--please don’t grind your lipstick or rouge into the floorboards, Mr. Flich has trouble every year getting it out--yes, in the rubbish bin, it’s right over by Mr. Black’s side of the classroom, please don’t take long, we have a lot to get through today.”

Within the span of about thirty seconds half a dozen tubes of lipstick and at least one eyeshadow palette had clattered into the bin by Sirius’s feet and, if Remus didn’t know any better, it seemed as if Christmas had come early for his Potions partner. 

  
“Brilliant,” Sirius muttered, fishing the discarded makeup out with a flick of his wand, organizing the lipstick by shade in a line on his desk. “Which one do you reckon would suit me best, Moony?”

Remus snickered, playing along. “Ooh, that deep plum would be particularly fetching on you,” he remarked, quietly enough to not draw the attention of the rest of the class. “Very punk rock--wait, Sirius, that’s not  _ sanitary _ \--”

Sirius looked up from his reflection in the shiny stirring spoon, the makeup already applied to his bottom lip.

“What? It’s not like I haven’t snogged half the birds in our year already,” he retorted, finishing his upper lip before giving them an experimental pucker. “Yes, very fetching indeed.”

Remus gave a mildly derisive snort. “Inbred, narcissistic prat.”

“Bloodthirsty, flea-ridden beast.”

“Insufferable slag.”

“Stuck-up spod.” 

“Git.”

“Wanker.” 

Their insult exchange continued through class, earning many an eyeroll from their peers as they bickered about, among other things, who would be responsible for mass insect murder or who would have to fetch the mortar and pestle from the back room. As James attempted to pry open a cocoa pod several stations down with a rather dull knife, he couldn’t help but laugh when he saw Sirius dip his finger into the mashed up cochineal beetle mixture and rub some of it into his cheeks, beseeching his partner in a high-pitched falsetto to remark on how pretty he was while all ‘made up in his beetle bits’ as Remus did his best to look as if he hadn’t just downed an entire vial of their current project. 

Huh. 

Before he could think more of it, Peter had elbowed him lightly in the side, his watery blue eyes wide as he motioned toward where Lily and Severus were hissing at one another under their breaths. Slughorn had long since retreated to the desk in the corner of his classroom for a kip (as he normally did during double Potions periods), and it seemed that his absence had completely eliminated their attempts at discretion.

“--flouncing about like a bloody poof with makeup on, it’s  _ obscene _ \--”

“Let it go, Sev, he’s not hurting anyone,” Lily interjected, lips pursed as she tried her best to count out thirteen anti-clockwise stirs in the cauldron. By the looks of it their potion had taken on Lily’s magical intent and become a rather sour shade of chartreuse, the occasional spark dancing along the surface. “It’s hardly obscene for a boy to wear makeup.”

“It is when he’s being such a  _ girl. _ ”

Lily clenched her fist. “Oh, so being a girl is ‘obscene’ now, too?”

“Oh,  _ please _ , like you don’t roll your eyes every time Marlene’s got herself made up like a circus clown and her tits are spilling out of her shir--”

_ Smack. _

The slap echoed like a thunderclap, bulldozing through the light chatter so effectively that Peeves could be heard cackling two classrooms away as he defiled Professor Binns’s chalkboards with crude drawings of troll genitalia. Even Sirius had halted his frivolous antics to whip his head around, mouth open in shock as Lily grabbed Severus by the tie and yanked him down until they were eye to eye, clutching the ladle in her fist so hard that Remus could see the tendons bulging beneath her skin.

“What the  _ everloving fuck _ is wrong with you, Sev?!” she hissed, clearly trying her best to keep her voice from wavering or elevating several octaves. “Do you--do you think it’s funny to insult my friends?”

Their potion had spoiled completely by then, smoldering and coal-black as if struck by lightning.

“Oh, so Sirius is your  _ friend _ , now, is he?” Snape snapped, clearly rattled by the outburst but determined to double down. “That’s not the word you used to describe him when he put bubotuber pus into your toothpaste--”

“There’s a very clear difference between being annoying and being cruel!” she exclaimed, gesticulating with the ladle so vigorously that bits of potion splattered over both of their crisp white uniform shirts. “ _ Merlin _ , Severus, can you  _ hear  _ yourself? What  _ happened _ to you?”

“I stopped letting people like  _ them _ walk all over me!” he roared, gesturing over toward the Marauders. “Isn’t that what you always wanted me to do? Stand up for myself and not take their shit?”

As they continued to bicker Sirius saw James place down his paring knife and begin to walk towards Lily and Severus, hands up placatingly, but Peter held him back with an arm and a silent shake of the head, looking towards Remus while gesturing towards his lapel.

Right. Remus was a Prefect. Remus was a Prefect, and Horace Fucking Slughorn was fast asleep, and Remus John McFucking Lupin, sixteen year-old pansexual werewolf, had to compensate for his professor’s terrible classroom management at ten in the morning less than fourty-eight hours after a full moon.

Before Sirius could advise him against it Remus was striding forward, relaxing his features and taking a deep breath as he caught Lily’s eye. They’d both been through the same conflict de-escalation course at the beginning of last term as a part of their Prefect training, so with any luck she’d make his job a little easier.

“I know it’s none of my business, and that this  tête-à-tête is probably quite important and a long time coming, but this is neither the time nor the place,” he said gently, albeit firmly as he looked at the both of them pointedly. “If this can’t wait, then I’m going to wake up Slughorn and send someone to fetch McGonagall.” 

Lily gave a curt nod, dismissing herself back to the Potions station with a resigned huff, but Snape wrinkled his nose in distaste as he stared Remus down, as if daring him to make a move. 

“Well?” the Gryffindor Prefect inquired, and before he could help it his lip had curled back in a subconscious snarl, the wolf within him reveling in the other boy’s wide-eyed fear as it stirred to the surface, and Snape recoiled so violently that he knocked over Lily’s Potions toolkit and sent the cast iron instruments scattering along the flagstone floors, and with a great snort Slughorn  _ finally _ startled awake.

“Merlin’s  _ beard _ , what’s all this commotion! Mr. Snape, Mr. Lupin, what’s the meaning of--”

“C-conflict de-escalation, sir,” Lily squeaked, eyes flitting between Severus and Remus. “Remus was just encouraging Severus and I to save a conversation for later.”

“Very well--Mr. Lupin, back to your station, please, Mr. Snape--”

“What  _ are _ you?” Severus blurted, pressed up against a bookshelf as he pointed a shaking finger at Remus, who had curled into himself as soon as the tools had clattered against the floor, eyes wide and ears ringing. “You’re-- how did you--?”

“That’s enough, Mr. Snape,” Slughorn interjected sharply, striding to the front of the room as quickly as his stubby legs could carry him, catching sight of the festering contents of his and Lily’s cauldron as he stood between the two boys. He Vanished the still-smoking potion, bewildered as he looked between Lily and Snape, clearly in disbelief that his strongest students had failed their task. “Clearly, neither of you are in the proper mindset to brew this morning. Please schedule a time to come back and re-attempt the Blushing Brew within the week, ideally with different partners.”

Lily ducked her head, concealing her mien in a curtain of fiery red hair. By the way her shoulders were shaking Sirius could tell that she was on the verge of tears, and the smug satisfaction and reluctant fondness he’d initially felt when she’d come to his defense against Snape instantly shifted into a visceral, stomach-dropping-out-your-arse guilt. 

“Come on Evans, I’ll help you pack up,” he volunteered quietly, not waiting for Slughorn to give him permission as he knelt down to pick up one of her measuring spoons that had spun across the floor before coming to rest by his desk. Just as he began to look for the other instruments he heard James summon them one by one with his wand, swearing as they clattered loudly onto the surface of his desk. Ignoring Slughorn’s perplexed expression and Snape’s incredulous protests, he organized the supplies back into the kit and walked Lily to the door, circling back to guide Remus, still paralyzed with overstimulation, back to their shared desk. He supposed the grimace he’d aimed at Severus had looked more comical than menacing (on account of the fact that he still had lipstick on and had rouged his cheeks with mashed-up beetle corpses), but the Slytherin glared with such venom and malice right back that Sirius was surprised he didn’t spoil the rest of the brewing potions in the classroom.

With an angry flourish of his robes Severus slammed his textbook shut, rolled up his parchment, and stormed out into the corridor, his heavy footfalls slapping against the ancient flagstone floors. At his departure, Sirius swore the room became five degrees warmer.

“...well, that’s that,” Slughorn murmured, sighing heavily as he picked up a piece of chalk and wrote several numbers onto the board. “For those of you who haven’t spoiled your potions, please cover them and allow them to cool in the back after you reach step 8: we’ll finish them on Tuesday once the cocoa has had some time to ferment. You’re excused once you’re done, and the reading for next class is on the board.”

After several seconds of stunned silence the students seemed content to resume brewing, even if the idle chatter was now infused with a significant amount of gossip. The Potions professor did little to mask his exhaustion when he returned to his desk, running a hand through his hair as he summoned a scrap of parchment and a particularly ugly peacock feather quill, no doubt to report the incident (or what little of it he’d witnessed) to the headmaster. 

“Mister Lupin, a word, please,” he requested, not looking up from the parchment to notice that Remus was still in no condition to speak. Sirius reached across the table to squeeze Remus’s wrist in one hand as he rifled through his book bag with the other, humming in triumph as he pulled out the last few squares of Honeydukes dark chocolate with marshmallow cream that he’d been saving for dessert that night.

“Go, I’ll handle this,” Sirius said kindly, letting his hands linger as he folded the rest of the chocolate bar into Remus’s long, bony fingers. “Just be sure to eat in the hall: you know how Sluggy gets when we have food in here.”

The ghost of a grateful smile appeared on Remus’s face before he quietly padded out into the hallway, pressing the chocolate to his chest as he disappeared behind the threshold.

***

Fearing that he’d spoil their potion if he got too close, Remus resigned himself to preparing ingredients and editing a Care of Magical Creatures essay while Sirius wrapped up step eight. Once he’d placed their cauldron on its designated hook in the back room to cool, Sirius had intended to walk with the other Marauders to the Great Hall for lunch, but before he knew it Remus had disappeared down the hall, muttering that he was late for his meeting with Marlene. 

The werewolf was similarly distant in Transfiguration that afternoon, hardly looking up from his open textbook as Professor McGonagall effortlessly turned a bouquet of red carnations into a twittering flock of cardinals, and had looked like he’d been about to cry when he couldn’t manage to get the deep red petals on his bird’s body to turn into feathers. It had only taken a brief, sympathetic look from their professor for Remus to dismiss himself back to the dorm, and when Sirius, James, and Peter had finally rolled into Gryffindor Tower after dinner, they’d arrived to see Remus’s bed curtains drawn tightly over his four-poster. 

After he’d changed into his nightclothes, Sirius motioned for the plate of food that Peter had carried up with them (fish and chips, which was one of Remus’s favorites), shoving a chip into his mouth before knocking on one of the drapery-covered bedposts. 

“I’ve got dinner for you, Moony, so you’d better not be tossing off in there,” he declared, ignoring Peter’s sniggering and James’s delightfully exasperated eyeroll as he parted the curtain.

Just as he’d expected, Remus was curled in on himself on the bed, face turned into the mattress and blankets. He was still fully clothed--shoes and all--and appeared to have just collapsed into the bed with no consideration for comfort, using his rather thin uniform cloak as a blanket over his prone form.

“Fish and chips,” Sirius said by way of greeting, voice considerably softer now that he’d seen his friend’s state, placing the plate near Remus’s head as he sat down on a corner of the bed. “And a side of mayo.”

The werewolf stirred, nose twitching as he caught the scent wafting from the plate. Sirius had placed a warming charm over the food, so the meal was still steaming and crackling as if it were fresh out of the fry basket. 

“You’re going to make my bed smell like fish,” Remus mumbled, voice cracking with disuse, but Sirius beamed, barking out a laugh. 

“Better start eating, then,” he quipped, placing his wand on Remus’s bedside table and kicking off his shoes. “I’m not going to leave until your plate is spotless.”

Huffing in resignation, Remus grabbed a fistful of chips and shoved them into his mouth, not even bothering to slather them in mayonnaise first, chewing obstinately as he glared at Sirius with half-hearted annoyance. Even so, the color seemed to return to his face the moment his body registered that it was no longer being neglected, and before he’d swallowed his first mouthful Remus had pushed himself up to his elbows, pulling the plate closer.

“For that, I’m going to leave a single crumb and make you sit there until the sun comes up.”

“Be my guest,” Sirius retorted sarcastically, flopping onto the bed back-first, “I can be here all night.”

Remus flushed, staring resolutely down.

“At least change into your nightclothes and brush your teeth first.”

Sirius huffed. “Fine, mum,” he quipped, flipping his hair out of his eyes as he pushed back the curtains.

“And wash your face while you’re at it.”

***

Saturday dawned bright and clear on Hogwarts the following morning, coaxing Remus to wakefulness after one of the best nights of sleep he’d had in waking memory. Having fully expected to awake to the new injury on his lower back throbbing, Remus was pleasantly surprised to find that the pain had become somewhat of an afterthought instead, pausing long enough to give him a solid eight hours of sweet, sweet REM. 

The peace came crashing down when Remus turned in his bed to check the time and got a faceful of dog breath instead. 

Sirius had passed out on his bed as Padfoot around ten PM after a round of wizard’s chess, tongue lolling out of his open mouth and drooling onto the pillow. Remus hadn’t had the heart to shove him off the bed, but rather wished that he had when he saw how much fur Padfoot had shed overnight onto his clean sheets. In fact, Remus reckoned he still had grounds to kick his friend out--it was only seven AM and a Saturday, after all--but he kept the bed warm, and his fur was soft and silky, and when Padfoot wasn’t breathing directly into his face he smelled like Sirius’s expensive shampoo, and his inner wolf liked that very, very much.

“Five more minutes,” he muttered, if only to himself, curling into Padfoot’s side before he promptly dropped off to sleep for another two hours. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Left-handed people! Heya! I made Remus and Sirius lefties because (a) this is my fic and I can do what I want and (b) the ‘southpaw’ pun is too good to pass up. Plus, it’s a headcanon of mine that they were paired together in potions because they were the only left-handed people in the class and had to share a station. I remember in college that I was limited in terms of where I could sit because the stupid lecture desks were made for right-handed people and there were like 10 left handed seats in a 300 person lecture hall. When I took lab courses I also noticed a bias for right-handed people in the orientation of the lab stations and equipment. It was a great time. I can envision Hogwarts engineering some stupid tandem Potions stations and there’s one really shitty station for lefties that Sirius and Remus have to share and they bond over being ‘outcasts’ (hint hint foreshadowing). 
> 
> I also have the headcanon that Potions requires a lot of focus and can be really tricky because the brewer has to be in the correct mindset to brew the potion correctly: there has to be deliberate intent behind it, because the brewer’s magic is the ‘secret ingredient’ that catalyzes the reaction. Not all potions are similarly susceptible to the brewer’s intent, but those that are connected to emotions (like love potions) are particularly sensitive. 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I can’t believe I’ve been a part of the fandom since I was literally 10 years old and am now just managing to write my first HP fanfic at age 27 but here we are lol
> 
> I’m from the US, so it’s a little difficult for me to construct dialogue in a way I feel is authentic to these characters. That, and the Marauders attended Hogwarts in the 1970s, soooooo yeah. Definitely a challenge. Believe it or not I lived in London from the time I was about 6 months old until ~2 years old, so I actually learned how to speak English in Britain. My parents tell me that I had a British accent when I was learning how to speak, but that I lost it after we moved back to California so now I have a boring American accent and have to think pretty actively when I’m constructing dialogue for Brits. 
> 
> I’m also now realizing that the Lady Godiva bit was a little nuanced: legend has it that this lady supposedly rode through a town naked on horseback in order to get her husband to lower the taxes for the people of Coventry. She’s mentioned in Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” which I reckon the Marauders would have definitely heard (the song was released in 1979 and Sirius DEFINITELY listens to Queen, like come  _ on _ ).
> 
> Please comment and kudo if you can: I would greatly appreciate some feedback on this piece! I've been reading a lot of Marauders fic lately and wanted my story to be a bit different from others I'd seen (how successful I am in that endeavor remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic that you'll read at least one thing in this fic that you haven't seen anywhere else). Inevitably that's going to involve me making up some random spells and potions, but that's what makes this so much fun ;) 


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